Re: [Comm-en] p10-lxde-20230910-x86_64 kernel panic: sync error

[Michael Shigorin <mike@altlinux.org>]

On Mon, Dec 18, 2023 at 10:37:25AM -0600, TheGrove wrote:
> > PS: dropping lxde from 20231213 seems strange too
> >      as it's present in the branch indeed; did it break?
> If LXDE is not a viable option due to recent circumstances, I'm 
> perfectly happy with Window Maker.  I use the LXDE flavor because my 
> wife likes it over Window Maker.  So, I just install LXDE and download 
> Window Maker for myself later.

Ah, that's pretty easy to do both ways.

> I'll also mention that I don't mind going back to i586 over
> x86_64 either, if it requires less in initrd to run.

The most notable offender is the browser these days;
these are dropping 32-bit support and regarding 64-bit x86,
these are dropping non-SSE support et al.

x86_64 code gets considerably more registers available as well
as architectural extensions in the "base" arch version so it
will typically run faster on the same hardware but consume
more memory and cache as the pointers are twice bigger.

> I guess what I'm saying is, if the P10 Window Maker build fits
> within my requirements, I'll download and install that iso. 
> Thanks again for all of your efforts!

The current wmaker image is built with the same un-def
kernel flavour (newer, bigger) and it's most likely prone
to the same problem on that laptop.

Anton has prepared a trimmed-down lxde-based 32-bit image:
http://nightly.altlinux.org/p10/archive/alt-p10-lxde-20231218-i586.iso

...but don't haste please, we'll check it ourselves first --
hope to get back with it tomorrow.


On Mon, Dec 18, 2023 at 09:32:12AM -0600, TheGrove wrote:
> Rather than ask the team to build something special for
> just one person like me

Well if we fix something, it gets better for others too.

> is there another possible solution available to me? Does the
> JeOS have a "lighter" initrd than the other Starter Kits?

It should -- and there's a reason I didn't include firmware-linux
and drm support into that particular installer for quite some
time -- but it turned out to bring more problems back when I was
releasing starterkits (basically the newer graphical stack
started depending on drm and refusing to operate without that).

There's a nuance in _what_ part of the livecd/installer should
have drm drivers; I might be trying to exclude those totally
and Anton did that build with this code excluded from stage1
which is the most memory-sensitive part of the boot process:
there's no swap at all and the possibility to do anything
is pretty scarce as well (it's an early userspace, not a full
blown system that it has to bootstrap, anyways).

What's lost is plymouth splashscreen in 32-bit builds but that
doesn't seem worse than kernel panic ;-)

> Could I use that and then just add Window Maker to it, or is
> there more that I need to understand to make the JeOS starter
> kit more functional?

Of course you can -- every ALT system can be turned into another
one using apt and repository but we make many kinds of them for
the sole purpose of saving people's time tinkering :-)

> I will certainly keep monitoring and will happily try any
> solution the team create.  I do have some bandwidth to
> "play with" this month, so I could download an image or two
> to experiment with, if that helps at all.

Ah, so the link is there (but we'll test it anyways); welcome!

-- 
Michael Shigorin
http://altlinux.org/elbrus